Desjardins launches $150 million community recovery fund
Why It Matters
Grantmakers across Canada are launching emergency relief funds in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic’s unprecedented challenges, but few are aimed at funding long-term community recovery. Desjardins’ GoodSpark Fund is intended to do just that.
Montreal-based financial services cooperative Desjardins has launched a $150 million fund to support educational, environmental, and employment initiatives in Ontario communities affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Desjardins’ GoodSpark Fund is aimed at supporting both grassroots volunteer organizations and established non-profits alike, focusing on causes ranging from early childhood development to entrepreneurial development to the environment. Youth-focused projects are a major priority. But regardless of a particular project’s scope, Desjardins is looking for those that support the long-term socio-economic recovery for Ontario’s communities — and they’re looking to approve them quickly.
“Community initiatives are often the best plan of action against difficult situations like the COVID-19 crisis,” wrote Guy Cormier, Desjardins Group CEO and president, on its website. “They need our support now more than ever, whether it’s to get organizations and businesses back on their feet, jump on new development opportunities or create new partnerships.”
Any project looking for GoodSpark funding must “be socio-economic in nature, both impactful and sustainable,” according to Desjardins’s website. The project must prove that it meets a collective need for a particular community and not be used to address organizational issues from before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Billy Boucher, CEO of Caisse Desjardins Ontario Credit Union, says the credit union cooperative is especially interested in longer multi-year projects. The GoodSpark Fund’s $150 million will be distributed over the next four years, he says, so the cooperative is looking for bigger-picture initiatives centred around long-term recovery.
Desjardins’s previous community funding investments were wrapping up and Boucher says the cooperative was already considering how it could grow its community support. Then the pandemic happened — just as Desjardins finalized what its new funding model would look like for 2020. “A lot of the work had already been done and when we look back now, it’s almost as if it was custom built for what we’re living through right now,” he says. “But honestly, it wasn’t.”
Boucher says seven or eight projects have already applied for GoodSpark funding so far, but he’s hoping for more applications – and the cooperative’s liaison committees are scouting for potential grantees across Ontario. “They’re out in the community knocking on doors – virtually, these days,” Boucher says. “But they’re finding some very, very interesting projects that we’re seriously looking at as well.”
The GoodSpark Fund is just one of several recent announcements by major corporate grantmakers looking to support the social impact world in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, an incredibly difficult time for the sector. Earlier this month, the Ontario Trillium Foundation announced the Resilient Communities Fund, an $80 million pool of money to help organizations adapt their programming and purchase PPE. Meanwhile, the Indigenous People’s Resilience Fund also recently launched its first round of resiliency funding for Indigenous communities in need of help during the pandemic.
The GoodSpark Fund has no application deadline. Boucher says the cooperative is considering funding requests on a rolling basis. Even organizations who aren’t Desjardins customers are welcome to submit projects for consideration.
“If you have a project that is going to be beneficial to your community, and specifically those catering to youth or one of the other key areas that we’re looking to focus on – by all means, come to us,” he says. “Let’s see if there’s a fit.”
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